Aria Agrarian infill project

Urban Ventures, LLC & Perry Rose LLC 

Denver, CO

Aria is a 17.5-acre development in North West Denver, former Sisters of St. Francis convent purchased by Urban Ventures, LLC and Perry Rose, LLC. The site is a multi generational mixed income community that includes town homes, co housing and apartments.

Discovery:

The vision for Aria is wellness; we thought there is no better way to engage people around wellness than food and education around food. This would be accomplished by providing various levels of engagement for Aria and the surrounding community through program partnerships. The Two Forks agrarian education concept, was proposed as a collective that would reside in one of the convent wings adjacent to the proposed senior co-housing. Two Forks was proposing to bring in Cook Street as the anchor tenant and worked closely with the developer to curate additional partners for the space. Proposed shared tenant partners, Slow Food and Cooking Matters, as well as strategic partnerships with Bon Appetite Catering, Urbaculture Farms to provide an in ground growing component and Regis University who would provide a clinic at one of the retail sites to be used as a hands-on training component to their nursing program.

Results:

·      Providing on site food production to residents

·      Imbedded programing for residents through strategic partnerships

·      Diverse grouping of partners that would embody the vision of Aria

Two Forks worked with Urban Ventures LLC and Humphries Poli to produce a feasibility plan for the build-out.  Aspects of the feasibility revealed obstacles too large to overcome for the anchor tenant, Cook Street and proposed non-profit partners. Currently Urbaculture community farm and Regis University clinic remain